Sir Jan Lewando

12:03AM BST 12 Jul 2004

Sir Jan Lewando, who died on July 2 aged 95, was the first non-family director of Marks & Spencer, and went on to be chairman of the textile group Carrington-Viyella.

He was born into the Polish Ashkenazi community in Manchester which included Marks & Spencer's founding families. He joined their business in 1929, when it had already developed from its origins as a "penny bazaar" into a successful retail chain, and was about to embark - under the leadership of the brothers-in-law Simon Marks and Israel Sieff - on the great expansion of the 1930s which made it a landmark institution of the British high street. Lewando joined the board in 1954, and played a leading role in the clothing and textiles side of the business.

A constructive and entrepreneurial manager, with firm views and a lively sense of humour, Lewando was seen by the most dynamic of the dynasty's younger generation, Marcus Sieff (later Lord Sieff of Brimpton), as a potential rival for the leadership of the firm. But it was inevitable that Marcus, as the family candidate, would be anointed to succeed his uncle, Teddy Sieff, and in 1970 Lewando went to run Carrington-Viyella, one of M & S's major suppliers.

Carrington-Viyella was a merger - forced by ICI as the main shareholder - of two troubled groups, both overstretched by the 1960s fashion for textile takeovers and both losing ground to cheap foreign competition. Viyella had been aggressively expanded by the entrepreneur Joe Hyman, until he was ousted by his own board in 1969. Carrington & Dewhurst, best known as a maker of "crimplene" polyester fabric, had also multiplied in size but fallen into financial difficulty.

Lewando's task was to unify the group and carry through a painful rationalisation, modernising or closing many of its traditional (in his description, Dickensian) spinning, weaving and finishing units.

Redundancies followed, but Lewando remained on good terms with union leaders and introduced generous staff welfare measures akin to those at M & S. When he stepped down five years later, he told an interviewer that he had "enjoyed every minute of the challenge of being a headmaster" after a long housemastership at M & S. Carrington-Viyella was leaner and fitter than he had found it, but not even the wisest of managers could reverse the cycle of decline which afflicted the whole of Britain's textile industry in the 1970s; some years later, the group was absorbed by its rival Vantona.

Jan Alfred Lewando was born in Manchester on May 31 1909. His father, Morris Lewandoski, was a gifted tenor who had left Poland as a boy during the pogroms to settle in Ireland - until he was discovered by Sir Henry Wood, under whose patronage he trained in Milan, and who sang at Covent Garden.

Morris became cantor of the Higher Broughton synagogue in Manchester and married Eugenie Goldsmid who, before her marriage, had been governess to the children of the first Michael Marks (the immigrant pedlar for whom M & S's "St Michael" brand was named), including Simon. Jan was educated at Manchester Grammar School, where Marcus Sieff was his junior by four years. He went on to Manchester University, but - at a time of depression in the city's dominant cotton trade - family circumstances made it impossible for him to complete his studies.

He joined M & S as a management trainee and was soon running its smallest store, at Dalston Junction in north London, going on to be assistant manager in the flagship Marble Arch branch when it opened, and to manage larger stores around the country before moving to head office to take charge of menswear.

A business trip to Switzerland and Austria in 1938 convinced Lewando of the need to volunteer for the Army. He did so as soon as he returned, joining the Royal Fusiliers. He was a gunner sergeant until he was transferred to the Technical Branch of the War Office; when outposts of the War Office were established in Washington and Ottawa, he was dispatched to co-ordinate production and supply of artillery and ammunition, travelling extensively in America to set up production, and to the war fronts to monitor supply lines.

In 1942 he went from El Alamein to Tripoli - once again crossing paths with Marcus Sieff, who was a movement control officer in the desert - with an armoured division of the Eighth Army. In the last stages of the war he was in the Far East; he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel, and was awarded the US Legion of Merit.

Returning to M & S, Lewando was sent to Israel by Simon Marks in the late 1940s to advise the Ministry of Supply there on industrial development. In the 1950s he worked with Teddy and Michael Sieff to expand the group's merchandising of clothing and textiles; one of his important contributions at M & S, and to the British textile trade in general, was the development of import and export links in Europe, Israel, North America, South Africa and the former Soviet Union.

He was vice-chairman of the Clothing Exports Council, and a member of the British Overseas Trade Board and the British National Export Committee. He led a number of British trade events abroad, including the first to be staged in Beijing.

Lewando also arranged for Naafi stores on British overseas bases to sell British goods under Marks & Spencer franchises, and was active in the CBI as a member of its European steering committee.

He was appointed CBE in 1968 and was knighted in 1972.

After leaving Carrington-Viyella, Lewando was a non-executive director of numerous companies in America and South Africa as well as in Britain. He particularly enjoyed his long association with W A Baxter & Sons, the Scottish foods company; he was able to combine his visits with indulging his love of salmon fishing on the Spey.

His other interests included the chairmanship of the British Transport Trust, which preserved historic vehicles and aircraft, and of the appeal committee of the British Institute of Radiology. Having always regretted his incomplete education, he embarked in his eighties on an Open University MBA course. He was also a keen golfer at Stoke Poges and Wentworth, and a member of MCC.

Jan Lewando's mind remained sharp until the end of his life; his friends and family relished his capacity for robust conversation and vivid letter-writing.

In 1948 he married Nora Slavouski, who survives him with their three daughters.